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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25741276">In my Defense</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivegotaheadlineforyou/pseuds/Ivegotaheadlineforyou'>Ivegotaheadlineforyou</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>passed down like folk songs [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hadestown - Mitchell</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, F/M, Young Love, cursing, discussions of adultery, pretty canon compliant</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 02:35:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,425</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25741276</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivegotaheadlineforyou/pseuds/Ivegotaheadlineforyou</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><span></span><br/><em>“Our time will come, lover.” His voice, so deep in the ground, Persephone thought, he spoke with the weight of the world in his voice.<br/>“But when?” </em><br/><br/>***</p>
<p>Persephone, in moments of pain, is forced to remember the good whilst facing the bad. How do you reconcile the man you knew with the one he's become?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Background Orpheus/Eurydice, Hades/Persephone (Hadestown)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>passed down like folk songs [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1867240</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>46</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>In my Defense</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Based on Taylor Swift's 'the 1' from Folklore. The first fic in a new series.</p>
<p>Hadestown belongs to Anaïs Mitchell. the 1 belongs to Taylor Swift.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <em> you know the greatest films of all time were never made</em>
</p>
<p class="p2"> </p>
<p class="p1">The slightest bit of light was enough to wake him. He wasn’t used to the world up top — not anymore. He wasn’t used to feeling cool breezes, or the tickling of grass against his shoulders as he slept in the grass, a woman with skin that warmed his brittle heart held tightly in his arms.</p>
<p class="p1">The day was waking up. He should go soon. He heard the lark in the distance, chirping a sound that fell flat on his ears. Oh how he wished for one more moment, knowing that as soon as he received his wish, he would wish for another, and another and another.</p>
<p class="p1">Holding the goddess of spring in your arms, Hades thought, was an addiction he never wanted to kick.</p>
<p class="p1">“G’Back to sleep,” he heard her murmur into his chest. “Be another hour before they come lookin’ for me.” Her words were slurred early in the morning. He hadn’t noticed that until now, the teal and yellow sky shedding light on corners of his love that he’d never seen before.</p>
<p class="p1">“Your mama will be out for blood if she senses Death on the horizon,” Hades whispered back, pulling his lover tighter to him. Her curls fanned out around her, falling unceremoniously around her head and on his chest. He wished he could frame this moment, keep it in his breast pocket, close to the heart that beat golden ichor only for her. “She’ll come after me with a pitchfork.”</p>
<p class="p1">“If you’re Death, then I’m Life,” she said, a smile in her voice, “so we must cancel each other out.” She lifted her head. Her cheeks were high, her skin so dark in comparison to his, but light enough to house freckles, spread across her cheeks. Like stars in the night’s sky — predictable, mappable, knowable.</p>
<p class="p1">Looking at her in the morning light was something Hades wanted to memorise.</p>
<p class="p1">“Seph,” he murmured, lifting a hand to brush her hair away from her face. She leaned into his palm, her eyes heavy still. “Our time will come, lover.” His voice, so deep in the ground, Persephone thought, he spoke with the weight of the world in his voice.</p>
<p class="p1">“But when.” it wasn’t a question that Hades had an answer to, she could see that in his eyes. “I just,” she mumbled, letting her head fall back on his chest, wrapping her arms tighter around him. “I want to share this love I have for you.” She listened to Hades try to control his breath. But he was given away by the surge in his heart. She could feel the thing he called old, the thing he claimed was too weary to love again, stir to live.</p>
<p class="p1">“Soon, Lover.”</p>
<p class="p2"> </p>
<p class="p1">
  <em> i have this dream you’re doing cool shit, having adventures on your own. </em>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <em> you meet some woman on the internet and take her home.</em>
</p>
<p class="p1"> </p>
<p class="p2"> </p>
<p class="p1">“What was she doing here?” Persephone spoke through gritted teeth. The ichor beneath her flesh raged a war within her, sending her closer and closer to the precipice. The liquor flowing through her didn’t help the matters. What else was a girl to do — stumbling home from the bar to find her husband with a little bird. A little lark on his arm — Persephone’s time was over now, the sun had risen on her, and she was tossed aside with the nightingale.</p>
<p class="p1">“Nothing to worry yourself with, Lover,” he said in his tone, so heavy, so final. She watched him move about his office, as if it were any other day. Business as usual. As if him finding pleasure in the arms of a Shade was something his <em>wife</em> should not concern herself with. “Here,” he said, his voice cold as the Styx, holding out a crystal glass filed with a honey coloured vice. “Have another drink.”</p>
<p class="p1">“No, I’ve had enough,” she seethed,smacking the drink out of his hand, sending it to the ground where it shattered on impact. Hades didn’t flinch — he merely turned back to his desk, shaking his head.</p>
<p class="p1">“Don’t patronise me, Hades,” Persephone continued. “I’m not a child you can toss around.”</p>
<p class="p1">“You’re sure acting like one,” he bit back, leaning against his desk. She watched as he undid his cufflinks. He rolled his sleeves up, and staring back at her were the building blocks to her ruin. She hated the tattoos, hated the way they obscured his soft skin. The Hades she loved didn’t have them, didn’t have these heavy reminders of the way he built them apart. She couldn’t bare to see them, and so she turned away, stumbling as to not step on the shattered glass.</p>
<p class="p1">“Seeing you this drunk is not becoming of a Queen, Persephone.” She bit her lip to keep from scoffing. The King of the Underworld sure knew how to take someone down a few notches.</p>
<p class="p1">“And since when did fucking a shade become appropriate for a King?” She watched her arrow land and the corner of her lip turned up in something akin to pride.</p>
<p class="p1">Hades murmured darkly. “You’ve got no clue what you’re on about.” She felt her head hammering, her hands shaking. Where was the man who held her gently under cotton candy skies? Who stole moments with her, and savoured them as if they were wildflower honey sweets? Who called her the one, who saw her as she was and asked for nothing except her hand?</p>
<p class="p1">“I know more than you give me credit for, Hades. I know your tricks,” she said, raising a hand and shutting her eyes, bracing herself when he tried to interject.</p>
<p class="p1">And without another word, without allowing the blood to overtake her reasoning, she walked out, leaving her bitterness behind her, as her shoes crunched on shattered glass.</p>
<p class="p2"> </p>
<p class="p1">
  <em> you know the greatest loves of all time are over now</em>
</p>
<p class="p2"> </p>
<p class="p1">“We’ll try again next fall.”</p>
<p class="p1">In those words held everything she once wished for — everything Persephone once wanted. They held the silhouette of the man she loved, who bore such little resemblance to the man in front of her that she could barely call them the same person. They held within them the power she had always wanted, had always bargained away for one more moment with him, one more kiss.</p>
<p class="p1">She always wanted to walk with him, hand in hand, side by side, to the top of Olympus and fight their love out. He had always told her that her love was worth warring over. <em>I’ll wage a war against your mother for your hand</em>, he whispered into her ear, as she lay naked in the dirt, blanketed by her lover and the night sky. <em>You’re worth every drop of ichor I can bleed. </em> But she was told to wait. She was told to sneak, to hide, to run and tell nobody. You’re too young, he’d mutter in the safety of darkness, when she couldn’t see the tear stains on his cheeks. He’d try to retreat, calling himself names and idolising her in the same breath.</p>
<p class="p1">She looked at the man, holding out her coat to her, asking her in his roundabout way, to give him another chance. But wasn’t giving him that chance sacrificing the sliver of power she had left?</p>
<p class="p1">Persephone looked between her man, hand outstretched, and the lovers, embracing to the side. She could see the Songbird with her fingers knotted in the back of her Poet’s shirt. She watched as the Poet whispered promises and pleas into her ears. She watched them, in every inhale and exhale, give each other as many chances as they needed to get this right. She remembered feeling as though she would do anything for one more moment with her lover. And when she looked back at the man in front of her, she saw a gleam in his eye, as though the younger man, still brimming with youth, was stood in front of her again.</p>
<p class="p1">She had given away her power so many times before. But what’s one more time in the life of an immortal?</p>
<p class="p1">“Wait for me?” she asked, having no expectation of an answer.</p>
<p class="p1">“I will,” he answered in the next breath, not giving Persephone any time to brace herself for an answer. With his words, he breathed a new life into her heart. Not one of forgiveness, but one of fighting. And in that moment, as she stepped on the train, and watched the doors shut on her lover, she let herself hope. That come autumn, things would be different.</p>
<p class="p1"> </p>
<p class="p1">
  <em>i guess you never know</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading! Folklore has inspired me with so many different Hadestown ideas, so I hope you'll come along for the ride! I used to be @ivegotaheadlineforyou on tumblr but now! I'm back with a brand new blog, and I'm at @brightas-arose!</p>
<p>New chapters coming soon! In the meantime, send me your favourite lyrics, and possibly some prompts? </p>
<p>Love you and thanks for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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